I was visiting with a friend the other day and heard a story that made me shake my head. It’s pretty simple. The parents of a talented fifth-grade girls’ basketball player made a videotape of their daughter playing basketball and sent it to the head varsity basketball coach at the school district’s public high school.

To write a sentence in like Yoda would: “On earth, why?”

Some thoughts: 
1) How could that family gain from this videotape? For a school of this size (a large suburban Twin Cities school), even a future D. I superstar would never make the varsity team before eighth grade.
2) If this player is that good, trust me the coach won’t need to watch a videotape to find out about her. Word of mouth would spread the news.
3) What good does a tape do in fifth grade? Do the parents think their daughter would make the varsity next year. I believe Minnesota rules prevent all athletes from playing varsity until a minimum of seventh grade (but I’m not positive). It’s not like she is a 103-pound wrestler.
4) Aren’t the parents sending serious red flags? If I was the coach, I would roll my eyes.  I would wonder when the parents will start sending e-mails about when she should play, and when she does, how they can get her the ball some more.
5) If you want to make a videotape to help get a kid on an AAU team or an all-star team, that makes sense. Making a tape in this situation, makes zero sense.

Actually, Kevin probably sent a lot of letters last week, not just to me. I am referring to Kevin Merkle, Associate Director of the Minnesota State High School League, who oversees the officials. I received a letter because I have been a full registered basketball official in Minnesota for the last decade. I copied most of this letter so you can understand his appreciation for officials.

“The MSHSL established service awards for officials, in order to recognize the service that officials provide to our member schools and the student-athletes of Minnesota. Congratulations on your 10 years of service to our programs! For this service you are being recognized with this enclosed pin.

Throughout your years as a registered official, you have continually worked to upgrade your skills and knowledge in order to be an effective official. You have devoted countless hours, traveled many miles and given great effort to meet the expectations of the League, the schools and the athletes whom you serve. Your efforts have made a difference! You have played a vial role in the education of the youth of Minnesota. For those efforts and your service — Thank You!!!”

Thanks, Kevin, for reminding us that we do play a role in the important education that comes through the team sport experience. I appreciate the reminder.

Every August, I start to feel this way. I’m out of my element. It is the only month throughout the year that I don’t officiate basketball games. Why do I boycott August? Everyone else does. As a general rule, there are no basketball games to officiate in August. Summer camps generally end in July. I’m halfway through the month and have more free time than I usually do. Technically, I have more time to update this blog, but not as much to write about in the offseason.

The other night, however, one of my Facebook “friends” who I met earlier this year and absolutely loved BasketCases, “chatted” me through the Facebook function. Our “chat” is worth some commentary. He asked me about some basketball-related items involving his daughter, who is going into sixth grade in a couple of weeks. I asked him how much money he spent in the last year on basketball for his daughter, who is a very good player. He said $5,000! Wow, that is a lot of money for a fifth grader. Now, I know $20 was well-spent for a copy of BasketCases, but $4,980 is a ton of dough to invest in an 11-year-old. Half of that money went to send his daughter to play in a national tournament across the country, in which his daughter was named to an all-tournament team. I asked him if the goal was for his daughter to play in college. He said absolutely. I didn’t specifically frame the question to “earn a college scholarship,” but I assume that is what he meant by his answer.

I have no problem with that. He said his daughter loves basketball, and they have identified that she has a great deal of talent. If his family can afford to give his daughter these opportunities, good for them (althought the investment in basketball to secure a scholarship may cost more than the scholarship itself at this rate!). It’s just that the $5,000 price tag really caught my attention. I talk about how parents can spend thousands of dollars on basketball over the years, but it’s amazing to see that figure spent in less than one year. If you have a young son or daughter who shows basketball promise, you may need to open a Home Equity Line of Credit before Junior gets to junior high.

Endorsements on the back cover of a book are important. That’s why I targeted the best coach in the NBA in my opinion, Gregg Popovich of the San Antonio Spurs, to serve as the lead endorsement for BasketCases. In the Aug. 3 edition, the Sporting News ranks Pop as the 49th best coach of all time in any sport. The only NBA coaches voted ahead of him are Phil Jackson at No. 4 (10 NBA titles with the help of Jordan, Shaq and Kobe), Red Auerbach at No. 6 (nine NBA titles with the Celtics), Pat Riley at No. 30 (5 NBA titles) and Chuck Daly at No. 45 (2 NBA titles with the Pistons, Gold Medal with the original Dream Team).

Pop has won four NBA titles with the Spurs and could have won six with different outcomes on the Derek Fisher miracle shot and the Dirk Nowitzki last-second three point play. My friend Jay Howard, the former play by play broadcaster for the Spurs, introduced me to Pop in the fall of 2007, which helped secure his endorsement. 

During his final preseason game of this past year, NBA referee Ken Mauer (who wrote the foreword for BasketCases) worked a game in San Antonio and thanked Pop for me for his important contribution to BasketCases. A few weeks prior to that game, I mailed Pop a copy of the final version of the book with his endorsement on the back cover. When Kenny thanked Pop for helping me out, Kenny said Pop’s eyes lit up. “Kenny, I got the final copy and read the whole thing. It’s great. I loved it,” is what Pop told Mauer.

Pop, congrats on the accolade from Sporting News. Anyone who follows the NBA knows that others have won more championships, but you did it with less talent, which says something about your coaching.

Pop’ s quote on the back of BasketCases reads: “Basketball is the best sport in the world. It’s critically important that we make youth basketball a positive experience for everyone involved — especially the players. I enjoyed BasketCases because it’s the first book I’ve read that focuses on educating parents, coaches and players about the game. Derek Wolden’s perspective as a basketball official provides valuable insight to make the youth basketball experience enjoyable for everyone.”

Thanks, Pop.

As I write in BasketCases, there have been maybe even a 100 times that a parent or coach (more often a parent) has come up to me and said that my partner and I were the best officials they have had all year. Those are always nice compliments to receive. On the flip side, there have been at least 10 times in which I have been told that I was the worst official they have ever, let me repeat that, EVER, seen.

That happened again recently during a AAU boys tournament game. Before I write about the last play of the game, let me comment about the first basket of the game. I’m sure it set the record for the fastest technical foul that I have given out — EVER. On the play, the offensive player made a layup and was also fouled by the defensive player for a three-point-play opportunity. Instead of going to the free throw line like he should have, the offensive player immediately got into the face of his opponent and began trash talking on the first play of the game. In my opinion, that was justification for a technical foul. That action was clearly unsporting and needed to be addressed immediately. By the way, the opposing team’s player made both technical free throws. File that memory for later.

Same game. Well played. Well officiated. Fairly intense. Ten seconds left, the team whose player committed a technical foul on the first play of the game is losing by two points. They have the ball with a chance to send the game to overtime. I am the lead official on the baseline. A player drives right towards me and puts up a shot, which is immediately blocked at its apex by not just one, but two defenders. The offensive player, realizing he shot was blocked, tried to adjust in the air, and subsequently did not break his fall. He landed awkwardly on his own volition. I made a rightful non-call — there was absolutely no foul on the play — and the game ended. The coach of the team that lost knew it was a clean block, but that wasn’t the perspective of some fans of the losing team.

You have to understand the perspective of the fans. They were on the far sideline on the same side of the court, meaning they had to see through a lot of players. Whether or not they saw the block or not, doesn’t matter. They saw what they wanted to see, their player falling down to the ground and the official refusing to blow his whistle. Whose fault was it that they lost the game? The official, of course. Now, granted, if one of their players didn’t give away two points on the first possession of the game, technically speaking, that game could have gone into overtime.

Following the game, two fans told me that I was the worst official they had ever seen, a mom (I assume) and a grandpa (I assume). I want to comment on this from both a micro and macro perspective. From a micro perspective, these comments don’t cause me to lose any sleep. I have heard them before, and I will hear them again. Unfortunately, that is the type of behavior basketball officials have to put up with.

From a macro perspective, this type of behavior concerns me greatly. It’s part of the reason I wrote BasketCases. I don’t think parents and coaches understand that this type of behavior — collectively — causes good officials to quit officiating. Why would anyone put up with that negative feedback. It also concerns me how much  importance that our culture ties to the outcome of a youth sporting event.

For argument’s sake, lets say I “missed” the final call of the game. Is it truly my fault that one team lost? Did the losing team ever turn the ball over or miss any shots? Of course they did. I think it send such a poor message to blame officials for a loss when a team could have done so many other things better to earn a victory. I also thinks it tells a lot about a person’s true character. Remember that sports bring out the best in us — and the worst.

Unfortunately, the need for parents to read BasketCases continues to be high, partly because our country continues to be obsessed with youth sports and winning. If that grandpa and mom had read the book, they would have understood that when a player blocks a shot first, any subsequent contact is incidental unless it is egregious. In this case, there was no contact with the defensive player (he landed in a heap on his own), but if there was, I wouldn’t have called it because the block happened first. If they happen simultaneously, many officials will call a foul. If that contact happens first, I don’t even think its debatable.

I received an e-mail from David Johnson, head boys’ basketball coach at Robbinsdale Cooper in the Twin Cities. Cooper has been one of the top programs in Minnesota for the last several years. Coach Johnson recently finished reading BasketCases and had these words to say:

Good evening Derek,
I wanted to take this moment in time to thank you for writing the book basket cases. Each summer I try to read a least two - three books over the summer months to help myself grow as a teacher/ coach.

Your book was very enjoyable to read and had some great insight into understanding the game of basketball, parents, players and coaching at all levels of play. I know your book had much insight into youth basketball but was very helpful to me as a head coach at Cooper High School in district 281. I plan to focus on Chapter 27 and made a copy of the parent letter… God Bless you!, and Chapter 30 ten things you can do to become a better coach. We have already practiced running the baseline after a made basket.

Thank you so much for helping me become a better coach and teacher. I will treasure your book this season.

Sincerely,
David Johnson Head Boys Basketball coach a Cooper High School

During the final weekend of June, I traveled to Sioux Falls for an officiating camp run by Northern Sun co-assignor Colin Kapitan. I rode with fellow Twin Cities officials Isaiah Conrad and Jeff Mosca to the three-day camp (two other Twin Cities officials, Brent Svor and Jason Naber, attended the camp as well.)

Referee Camp is an opportunity to learn from and work good AAU-level games in front of college officials/clinicians, who provide tips about how to improve. There was also an opportunity to learn in a classroom setting.  Some of these are new things I had never thought about before; others were phrased in a way that sunk in. Here is a list of lessons learned at Referee Camp:

* Stay on the endline after a made basket. Officials have a tendency to start to head up court after a made basket. Just when an official starts to do that, is when they get out of position to make a line call.

* Do everything the same, all the time, on every play. If you do that, officiating is simple.

* Slow Down!!!

* Have a patient whistle

** This one gets two asterisks because it was perhaps the most simple yet profound thing I heard from a clinician named Justin Ingalls: “If you are not a good person, you are not going to be a good official.” I assume that same theory holds true for coaches and parents as well.

* Pay attention in warm-ups

* Four theories from a veteran basketball mind named Tynes Hillenbrand (sp?):

1) A short pencil is better than a long memory (write things down so they stay with you - I am complying with this one)

2) 80 to 90 percent of what we learn is what he hear and see (a better learning model than just lecture)

3) Failure or success is not forever (don’t rest on your laurels if you are good, and if you work hard enough you will achieve a level of success)

4) No advantage is permanent (similar to point 3, you have to keep working to catch up or get ahead)

* “Nothing good can come from an extended conversation with a coach”

* Two buzzkills of officiating: comparison and conceit (always comparing yourself to another official, “I am just as good as he is, why does he get better games” and conceit about your own self)

* If there is nothing in your lap, extend your vision

* In officiating, there are no “nevers” and no “alwayses”

* The best calls you make are usually “no-calls”

* Be your own best critic

* Dress to impress on game nights or when you go to camp

* “Every play has a beginning and an end. If you blow your whistle in the middle, you have missed the play.”

* “If you are good and passionate about your officiating, you will get noticed.”

* It’s not that fans don’t like officials, they just don’t like the shirts we are wearing

* Referees need to practice - teams practice every day after school

* Don’t call the second infraction, call the first

Chris Hamble wrote a nice article about BasketCases in the St. Croix Valley Press last week. Here is a link to the article:

http://www.presspubs.com/articles/2009/06/28/st_croix_valley_press/news/doc4a43cd2951505817944940.txt

Here is a recent interview on BasketCases with WCCO radio in Minneapolis.

Interview (6.2MB MP3 file)

You can also listen to the interview directly on the WCCO website.

Please drag the playhead about a quarter of the way into the program for the beginning of the interview.

I got an e-mail from NBA Referee Kenny Mauer — who wrote the foreword to my book “BasketCases” — that he was assigned to work Game 1 of the NBA Finals Thursday night in LA. This is the fourth consecutive year he has been assigned to work the NBA Finals, the pinnacle of officiating at the professional level.

Kenny worked Game 3 of the Mavs/Heat series in 2006, the one in which Dwayne Wade rallied the Heat from about 17 points down with six minutes left to win the game. The Heat went on to win the series in six games. Kenny worked Game 1 of San Antonio/Cleveland in 2007 and worked Games 2 and 5 last year between Boston and LA.

I admit that I thought Cleveland would roll to the Finals, but better teams tend to overshadow better individuals and the Cavs had no answers for Orlando’s inside-outside combination. I thought Mo Williams was a solid No. 2 scorer behind Lebron, but he didn’t come on until it was too late in the series. I will predict that LA will win in 6, but I probably will be wrong.